


Spirit of 77

by hollenius



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Con Artists, Family Issues, Gen, High School, Minor Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-11-04 01:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17889155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollenius/pseuds/hollenius
Summary: April 1977, Cicero, Illinois. The past year had brought a lot of changes into the life of 17-year old Jimmy McGill, and his impending high school graduation seemed guaranteed to bring even more, whether he wanted it to or not. With his future wide-open, but with his whole family still reeling from the recent death of his father, Jimmy struggles to find his own place in the world.  Being Slippin' Jimmy might be fun, but is it any way to live?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what revelations future seasons of Better Call Saul will bring, but this story is being written in the gap between the airing of seasons 4 and 5. It's a prequel fic set in an era that hasn't really been covered by the show, and while I've tried to keep everything canon compliant, or at least canon-congruent (e.g. it isn't canon, but doesn't contradict anything is), things may very well get contradicted at some point in the future.
> 
> The first chapter is a bit slow, but things will pick up as the story moves along...

By the time the final bell of the day rang at St. Francis Xavier High School, Jimmy McGill had been standing in the parking lot for the past 10 minutes. Cutting class was second nature to him at this point, and he knew he was missing nothing from today's English lecture that a quick peek at a classmate's notes the next morning couldn't teach him. Shakespeare wasn't going to change any time soon; he had more pressing matters to attend to this afternoon. A business opportunity had arisen the previous week, and he couldn't afford to wait any longer to close the deal.

He leaned back against the fence as he lit up his third cigarette of the day, taking a deeply unsatisfying drag from it. A rebellious image required careful cultivation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mother glaring at him from within her idling car as she waited to pick her child up from school.

The throng of teenage boys in matching blue suits and ties had finally began filing out of the front and side doors to the school, some lining up for the buses, others filtering out into the parking lot. Jimmy knew he had needed to get out here early to pick out a spot with a good vantage point of both exits. He puffed nervously on the cigarette again, scanning the departing students for the one face he needed to find. He'd only spoken to him the one time, and tried to piece his appearance together in his head. Tall. Blond. Thick neck. Mild acne. The beginning of a unibrow. ( _Not that I can see that from this distance_ , he thought to himself.) The walking personification of the football jock. The sort of fellow who would probably wearing a letterman jacket rather than the school's prescribed uniform blazer.

"Bingo," Jimmy whispered under his breath, as his eyes landed on his target--who was indeed wearing his letterman jacket--loitering on the edge of the parking lot with a couple other boys. He tossed his cigarette butt on the asphalt and stomped it out before making his approach, rehearsing the lines in his head that he'd worked on since morning.

"Hey John," he said with a casual wave as he walked up to the other boy, who responded with a look of confusion.

"Hey," he said, with a hesitant wave back. "Uh, what was your name again?"

"James McGill, but you can call me Jimmy."

"Right. Jimmy."

John suddenly noticed the other boys who were still gathered around him, and gestured to shoo them away.

"Don't mind them," he said, by way of explanation. "They're sophomores. They want tips on how to make the varsity football team next year."

"You have any good advice for 'em?"

"Yeah. Don't suck."

John laughed as if this were a tremendously witty remark.

"I thought you looked familiar," he continued. "You're the one who talked to me after the senior assembly last week, right?"

"Yep, you got it. Funny running into you out here."           

"Why's it funny? School just got out and I've got lacrosse practice in about ten minutes."

Jimmy grinned.

"It's funny 'cause I got a little something on hand right now that I think you had expressed some interest in before."

"You got beer?" asked John, his eyes widening in anticipation. Jimmy resisted the urge to roll his eyes in response.

"What, in my pockets? No. Better! Look at this."

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pair of small cards.

"These," he said, as he held them up, "are IDs. One for you, one for your girlfriend, since you said she was looking for one too.  You don't need to rely on anybody else now. You can buy however much beer you want whenever and wherever you want with these babies. Nobody would ever be able to tell they were fake. Check out the lamination job."

He held out one of the cards out so John could touch it, and he watched the admiring gaze in the other boy's eyes with a certain amount of pride. He had worked hard on those fake IDs--they looked good, and he knew it. If other students came to know it as well, there was a fair bit of profit to be had. (If law enforcement came to know it, however, he was in a hell of a fix.)

"How much did you say they cost?" asked John, as he took the ID and turned it over a couple times, feeling the heft of it in his palm.

"Well, it's ordinarily 22 bucks or so, but since I made these in advance, you got the special rush service, so that's up to 25 dollars. But, since you've got two of them there, and since I'm a generous guy, I'll slash the price to $20 for each of them."

"So it's $20?"

"Twenty each, yes. That's forty total."

John's face darkened, and he handed the ID back to Jimmy.

"I don't know if I really need this."

"But you said you needed it as soon as possible. And I delivered!"

"Yeah, but I changed my mind."

"Ok, but, look, you promised me you were gonna buy one. You promised me you were going to buy not just one, but _two_. I don't make these for just anyone."

"Maybe I can get them cheaper somewhere else though."

"You're not gonna get this _quality_ though," Jimmy petitioned. John responded with a shrug.

"This isn't just a beer coupon, it's a _whole new identity_. You can rent a hotel room. Rent a car. Hell, get a new library card, for all I know--the possibilities are endless. New age, new name, new you...but same face, so nobody gets too suspicious."

John's eyes wandered over the rapidly emptying parking lot. He fidgeted with his bookbag as he looked in the direction of the athletic fields, where members of various sports teams could already be seen assembling.

Jimmy realized he was running out of time, and his client was slipping away from him. He had to bring out Plan B.

"And, uh, just between you and me," he continued, sidling towards John to catch his eye once more, "you might want to have that ID for your girlfriend for other reasons too, if you know what I mean. Just for insurance purposes."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Weeeelll...what with her age and all..."

"What about her age?"

"She's a little young for you, s'all I'm sayin'. She's a little young for anyone, maybe."

"But she's a junior. She said she was 17, and I'm 17 too, so I don't see any problem there."

"Hey, she may be a junior, but you can't judge by what year in school somebody is. When my older brother graduated from _this very school_ , he was _fourteen_. Check the copy of the 1958 yearbook in the library if you don't believe me. They had a hard time finding him a graduation robe small enough! They pull this kinda shit all the time in schools. You just don't hear about it. Parents think it's great because they get to save a little money on tuition if Dick or Jane graduates a year or two earlier. Where did you say your girlfriend went again?"

"Francis W. Parker."

"Parker, oh man! You think the price point for parochial schools is bad, lemme tell you--you want to know how much the most elite private schools cost?"

John shook his head. He already didn't like where this conversation was headed.

"It's even worse, trust me. And the school this girl goes to is the most expensive of them all!"

"Really?" John asked incredulously.

"Absolutely! Thousands of dollars a year! Talk about an incentive to get skipped ahead a couple grades. And all that money, might I remind you, is still waaaay more than the cost of these two IDs that I've got all lined up for you and your lady friend. And, I might add, these IDs are also a lot cheaper than the cost of getting a lawyer when some cop pulls the two of you over at the local makeout spot, or catches you _in flagrante delicto_ at some party. You think getting accused of underage drinking is a tough rap to beat? Try getting labeled a sex offender on top of that. You have to consider your options and be prepared."

"Are you sure she's underage?"

"Buddy, I wouldn't be warning you about this if she wasn't. I'm looking out for you here--for _both_ of you. Couple of teenagers in love, neither of you wishing to do wrong, but both still under 18, stymied by the cruel laws of the state of Illinois. But if you both have a magical little piece of paper saying you're twenty-one, well...are you going to buy these two IDs or not?"

Jimmy watched John's eyes shift back and forth between his face and the IDs. _Come on_ , he thought as the seconds dragged by. _Buy them. Moron. You know you want them_.

John hesitated a second longer, but then reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

"You said it's $40 for both of them, right?"

"Yep."

He watched John flip through a bulky billfold for two twenties, which he handed over in exchange for the IDs.

"You made the right call," said Jimmy, as he pulled out his own decidedly thinner wallet and tucked the bills away.

"Thanks, I guess. I gotta get to practice."

Jimmy watched John run off towards the athletic fields. If he'd known he was carrying that much money on him, he easily could've got twice as much for the IDs. He walked towards his car in the nearly-empty parking lot, ruminating over where he went wrong, where he went right, and what he could've done differently. Minor swindles were one thing, he thought as he opened the car door and tossed his backpack into the passenger seat, but if this was going to be an ongoing operation, it would need some finessing.

There would be time to think about this later. First he had to go to Marco's.

 

* * *

 

"Hey asshole," Jimmy shouted as he banged on the front door of the Pasternak residence. "That guy bought both IDs, so you lost the bet. Pay up."

The door opened, revealing a girl who couldn't have been more than 10 or 11 years old.

"Oops. Hi Angie. Sorry. Pretend you didn't hear me say any of that."

"But I already heard you say it," she protested, as she opened the door to let Jimmy in. "If you want to talk to my brother, he's upstairs."

"Thanks," Jimmy replied, as he climbed the stairs to the second floor.

"Door's unlocked," shouted Marco from somewhere within his bedroom.

Jimmy opened the door and found Marco laying on the floor in the middle of the tiny, cluttered room, going through a large pile of coins for anything that looked misleadingly valuable.

"You gotta move out and get your own place at some point," said Jimmy as he cleared a small space on the carpet and sat down on the floor next to him. "This place is a mess. And I don't want to keep accidentally swearing at your baby sister."

"Then stop swearing at her, dummy. Just say 'butthole' instead of 'asshole', or something like that."

"I'm not gonna go around saying 'butthole', then I really _will_ sound like an asshole. But what I said is still true--that guy bought both of those IDs, and you said he wouldn't, so you owe me another ten bucks."

"Damn. Hold on. I was kinda in the middle of this, but I'll get your money now if you're gonna keep complaining about it." He pulled himself up and went over to his dresser, pulling a small bag of loose bills out of his sock drawer. He tossed a crumpled up pile of ones towards Jimmy, who promptly began trying to straighten them out.

"So how much did you sell them for?" asked Marco, as he walked over to his bed and pulled a couple cans of Hamm's out from underneath it.

"Twenty each," replied Jimmy as he flattened out a bill with his thumb. It was still wrinkled, but laid considerably flatter now.

"Not bad."

Marco sat back down next to Jimmy, pulling the tabs off both beers and handing one to Jimmy.

"Hamm's?" he asked, regarding the can with suspicion. "Whatever happened to Old Style?"

"Musta been a run at the store the other day. They were all out. Didn't want to go home empty-handed."

"Huh," mused Jimmy. "So why're we drinking in the early afternoon?"

"A toast! To new business enterprises!"

He extended his can towards Jimmy, who watched apprehensively for a few seconds before clinking his can to Marco's. A toast it was.

"God," muttered Jimmy after taking his first swig. "This stuff is awful. And lukewarm."

"I didn't have time to sneak it into the fridge. But it's still cheap," replied Marco, as he took another sip. "And it gets you drunk."

"Yeah, if you drink, like, five of them. There's almost no alcohol in here. I can't imagine spending a lot of money on a fake ID in order to buy it, you know? If I couldn't make my own IDs, I wouldn't bother."

He drank some more beer and grimaced.

"Speaking of which," he continued, "I coulda done a lot better with the sale today. This guy, you should've seen his wallet. He was _loaded_. He seemed the sort who would have money burning a hole in his pocket, which is why I went up to him last week to float the whole ID idea to him in the first place. But I didn't see how much he had on him today until after I'd already given him the price and told him it was a discount."

"I keep telling you you're underselling yourself. You forget how rich the kids at that school really are."

"Yeah, well I go there now, and you went there a couple years ago, and we're not exactly upper class. Or even middle class, really."

"Well, we're the, uh, the outliers. Not the norm."

Jimmy took another sip of beer, desensitized to the taste by this point. He stared at the pile of now-straightened bills in front of him before putting them in his wallet.

"I made forty dollars today, fifty if you count the money I won from you. If I can up the price of the IDs and we can extend this operation to a couple other schools, we can pull in a few hundred a week, I think. But we might have problems getting people to buy them. I barely managed this sale."

"You made the sale though."

"Yeah, but I had to cheat a bit."

"Cheat? How?"

Jimmy sighed.

"I...may have suggested to him that he and his girlfriend would need to have fake proof of age for other reasons. Like that she was actually underage and had been lying to him about it."

"Damn."

"Yeah. He was backing off from buying otherwise. Said it was too expensive."

An awkward silence settled into the room as the two of them sat there, drinking.

"She's not really underage, is she?" asked Marco hesitantly.

Jimmy half-choked on his mouthful of beer.

"Hell no!" he spluttered. "She's only a few months younger than I am. When he gave me a photo of her last week to work with in making the IDs, I recognized her immediately. We were in a play together at a summer camp back in 7th grade. Didn't know what happened to her after that until now."

"I'm kinda relieved to hear that," said Marco as he downed the rest of his beer.

"Only kinda?" Jimmy chugged the rest of the contents of his own can, mildly irritated. "Come on, man. I'm not some sort of sleazy pimp or something. I'm here to make some quick cash selling fake IDs to rich brats, nothing more, nothing less."

"I didn't mean it like that. You're a con man, not a monster."

"Hey, _con man_ is such a loaded phrase. I prefer _entrepreneur_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Since we don't have any canonical information on Jimmy McGill's schooldays, I just sent him to the same high school given as Chuck's alma mater in s4e1. (I figure if the parents thought it was good enough for one son, it'd be good enough for the other.) There is no Francis Xavier High School in Cicero, or anywhere in the Chicago area, similar to how there is no J.P. Wynne High School in Albuquerque, but its name suggests it's a Catholic school, and probably a Jesuit one at that. I used a prestigious/preppy all-boys Jesuit high school near my workplace as a conceptual model.
> 
> 2\. While Jimmy is bluffing about the IDs to frighten his reluctant mark, Illinois does have some slightly unusual age of consent laws that make no allowance for the relative ages of the people involved (e.g. if both people involved were 16), so it's not a completely impossible danger he brings up.


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy had lingered around the Pasternak home for the better part of a half hour, waiting for his mild buzz to subside before he drove home. ("Mom would have a heart attack if I crashed the car or something," he told Marco.) He talked pricing and distribution on the IDs with Marco, before running down a couple variations on the old coin scam that might work at venues in which the two of them weren't yet recognized. Cicero wasn't a huge town, but its few major ethnic groups were still sufficiently self-segregated that a con pulled in a bar in a Polish neighborhood could be successfully repeated in a location with a Czech clientele, with no one the wiser. Milking different varieties of Eastern Europeans for cash on a rotating basis had served them well so far, but it was bound to only work for so long; in the long run, the odds were high that they'd eventually run into someone who remembered them from some previous encounter. Someone who had intentions of recouping his prior losses by whatever means necessary.

One of these days, Jimmy vowed to Marco, both of them would make the jump to working in Chicago. More people, more tourists, more opportunities, more money--it was a scammer's paradise, overflowing with willing suckers crying out for exploitation. They could blend more seamlessly into  bigger crowds, without the fear of running into someone's uncle or coworker or old classmate. They could work on refining a few key cons, rather than constantly having to reinvent the wheel.

One of these days, they'd go to Chicago.

Jimmy was still mulling over one of the proposed coin scam variants he and Marco had discussed--the ten dollar wheat penny--as he pulled into the garage behind his house. He parked on the left-hand side of the garage. He had always parked on that side. There had once been a reason for that; his family had once had two cars.

His family had once had a lot of things.

He picked his way through the cramped backyard, yesterday's laundry still hanging from the clotheslines, as he approached the back of the house. As he opened the back door, he was greeted by the sounds and smells of something sizzling in a frying pan in the kitchen. (Though the sound was pleasant enough, the slightly acrid scent was not reassuring.) His mother stood at the stove at the opposite end of the room, aggressively prodding at the contents of the pan with a spatula.

"Jimmy," called his mother as she turned to face him, still fighting whatever was in the skillet, "I was wondering where you were! Hasn't school been out for a couple hours?"

"Sorry," he replied as he shut the door behind him. "I had some tough homework that I wanted to finish before I came home. I worked on it with a couple other kids after school. Easier to focus that way."

He kicked his shoes off next to the door and walked over to the stove to see what was cooking.

"It's not much," said his mom, apologetically. "Just frying up some potatoes. But I left them too long, and they're sticking to the pan. I've got some chicken thighs in the oven which might take another 10 minutes or so. I haven't had much time to cook after I took that second job."

She reached over to a nearby counter to grab a salt shaker, and poured out a stream of salt onto the greasy sliced potatoes in the skillet. Even before she had taken the second job, cooking had not been her strong suit, but no one in the family had ever had the heart to tell her this. Jimmy certainly didn't have the heart to tell her now.

"You may not have the time you used to," he said, as he eyed the salt-encrusted potatoes apprehensively, "but you still make good food."

His mother beamed as she set the salt shaker back down, blissfully unaware of any culinary shortcomings.

"Thank you, Jimmy. So how was school?"

"Oh, you know. Same as it always is." He shifted the weight of his backpack from one shoulder to the other, hoping to avoid getting roped into an endless round of small talk until dinner. "Uh, how were things at work?"

"Mostly the same. I was working at the grocery store in the morning and the library in the afternoon, and in both places, I caught someone trying to steal something!"

"My mother the crime-stopper! The police oughta put you on payroll, so you can work one job instead of two. Bet you'd do a better job solving crimes than any of their detectives."

Mrs. McGill rolled her eyes, temporarily returning her attention to the partially blackened potatoes, as Jimmy attempted to slip off towards his bedroom upstairs.

"Jimmy," she called, temporarily freezing him in his tracks at the base of the staircase. "Before you go running off to your room, there's a couple things I need to tell you. I didn't have time to go through all today's mail, but there was something addressed to you. Looks like it's from the University of Illinois."

She nodded in the direction of the dining room table, where a pile of mail was still visible. Jimmy swallowed, nervous.

"What did it say?" he asked.

"I didn't open it. It's addressed to you."

"I bet you want to know what it says too."

"I know you'll tell me whatever it says, good or bad."

Jimmy scurried across to the dining room and flipped through the letters until he found the one addressed to him. The envelope looked pretty thin. ( _Shit_.)

"I'll, uh..." He flipped the envelope over, nervously. He didn't want to open it up down here. "I'll be taking this up to my room. Get a little privacy and give it some time to sink in, you know?"

He waited for a reply, but heard none. Maybe his mother was distracted by the charred potatoes again. He walked back towards the staircase, thoughts drifting back towards a preemptive dreading of the letter's contents, when his mother called out to him a second time.

"Oh, one other thing I forgot to tell you. I got a phone call from Chuck shortly before you got home. He's got a little time off work, and will be coming home for a few days for Easter."

"Oh _goody_ ," replied Jimmy.

"Be nice," chided his mother. "We have to go pick him up from the airport tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow? I was going to go out that night. Can't he take a taxi or something?"

"What were you going to do that was so important?"

(What Jimmy  had been planning on doing was hardly something he could divulge to his mother, so he would have to tell Marco there had been a change of plans at the last minute. _Family matters_. He would understand.)

"It wasn't that important, I guess. You can use the car tomorrow night."

 

* * *

 

When he was at last able to retreat to the solitude of his bedroom, Jimmy tossed his backpack to the floor, clutching his letter from the University of Illinois in his other hand. He sat down on his bed, eying the back of the envelope. He took a deep breath before sliding a thumb under the top flap of the envelope and tearing it open.

There was only a single page inside the envelope, folded in thirds. His hands remained steady, but his heart began racing as he unfolded the letter, dreading its contents.

He stared at the letter for a while, knowing what it said, but almost unwilling to process it. The words on the page seemed like mere pictograms or hieroglyphics at first, as if his brain was trying to protect him from what he already knew was coming.

_Waitlisted_.

There it was.

The word hit him like a thrown stone, the weight of which soon sank into the pit of his stomach. He hadn't realized how much he'd been counting on acceptance until he learned he hadn't been accepted.

_Wait,_ he thought. That wasn't true, strictly speaking. He wasn't accepted, but he wasn't _not_ accepted. He wasn't rejected. He wasn't _not_ rejected either.

He wasn't anything, and somehow this was even worse.

 

* * *

 

Dinner that night had passed in a blur. He had fretted about how to break the news about his lack of admittance to his mother, but she had never asked. Perhaps she had been assuming he would bring it up himself. Perhaps she had just forgotten, amidst all the other distractions. Either way, he was thankful for the brief reprieve as he chewed his way through the bone-dry chicken and salt-encrusted potatoes that made up their supper. (At least Chuck coming home would mean a bit of relief on the home-cooking front for a few days, even if it would inevitably make everything else more difficult.)

He had to tell his family _something_ about the admissions letter at some point. He just hadn't yet settled on what.

The following day at school had passed similarly quickly, for better or worse. While Jimmy didn't have much good to say about Catholic schools on the whole, he couldn't find fault with getting a couple extra religious holidays off each year. Good Friday marked the beginning of a short Easter vacation, so the Thursday beforehand was marked by an extreme restlessness in the student body, which the teachers mostly catered to--there were no big tests, or taxing lectures, or anything else that might mar the upcoming holiday. As Jimmy drifted through his daily schedule, he wondered why they even bothered having classes that day at all.

As he walked down the hall to his last class of the day, he was flagged down by John from the football team.

"Hey, Jimmy,!"

"Hey," he replied. "How's it going?"

John looked around nervously, checking that nobody else was listening in, then pulled Jimmy in close.

"That fake ID, man. I used it last night, down at Kowalski's. Didn't even get a second glimpse when picking up some booze. You know how tough they are down there."

"Good to hear. I told you I make a good product."

"Yeah. I told a couple other guys from the team about it, and they might be wanting IDs of their own soon, you know? Can you help 'em out? Make me a couple extras for them."

"I can help 'em out, but you gotta send 'em straight to me. I don't do anything through a middleman, because of the delicacy of the operation here. A tailor-made product requires personal service. Craftsmanship. _Finesse_."

John stared back blankly for a second.

"So does that mean you won't do it?"

Jimmy sighed.

"Look," he said, as he rummaged through his backpack for a pencil and a scrap of paper. He scrawled something out on the paper and handed it to John. "Give your friends this. Tell them to call that number if they want to get set up with IDs. They need to contact me first so that we can work out a schedule and payment and all that stuff. Ok?"

John looked at the piece of paper, then back at Jimmy. "Give them this number?"

"Yes," replied Jimmy, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. "They contact me, and I'll get back to them outside of school, because if I get caught doing it _inside_ the school, then _nobody_ will get any IDs. Got it?"

"Got it," replied John, as he headed back toward the lockers at the other end of the hallway. The bell rang, and Jimmy raced down the hallway in the opposite direction towards his English classroom. Just because he skipped it yesterday didn't mean he thought it was good form to miss class two days in a row. The closer he got to graduation, the more he worried that some moronic minor slip-up on his part would cost him everything. He might be able to slip a college admissions screw-up past his mother--he'd never get it past Chuck, but that was a separate matter--but trying to explain being unable to graduate because he failed a class his last semester of high school would be a considerably harder sell, even after the events of the past year...

He chided himself for letting his mind wander. He didn't want to think too much about the possibilities.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, while waiting with his mother at O'Hare Airport, Jimmy's mind wandered again.

_Suppose_ he eventually got admitted off of the waitlist. If that was the case, why even tell anyone he was on the waiting list at all? Why irritate his brother, why worry his mother? She had enough to be worried about as it was.

His mother paced back and forth while Jimmy held back, leaning against a wall and staring the board that listed departing and arriving flights. Chuck's flight had been delayed twice already --something going on with the wind outside Denver--and the last hour of waiting had seen Ruth McGill work her way up from minor worry to deep agitation.

"Jimmy," she asked, as she ceased pacing for a second. "Should we go ask the gentleman from the airlines again if he's heard anything new?"

"It'll be fine, mom," he replied. "They haven't said anything about it being delayed any further. The board says Chuck's flight should be arriving soon, if it hasn't already."

As if on cue, a new assortment of passengers began pouring into the terminal from one of the nearby gates. Jimmy remained where he was while his mother ran over to get a closer look at the new arrivals.

She clutched and unclutched her purse as her eyes scanned the fifty-odd passersby, eventually landing upon the familiar face of a haggard-looking blond man in a grey suit lugging a suitcase and briefcase.

"Chuck, over here!" she cried, waving at him.

He looked up, spotted her, and began to raise an arm to wave back, before noticing he was still carrying luggage with both hands.

Jimmy continued watching the two of them from his spot by the wall; how she ran up to him, how he strode up to her. How he returned her kiss on the cheek, but flinched slightly when she drew him into a full-body hug after he'd set his baggage down. Now they were talking. He saw his mother gesture in his direction, and Chuck followed her gaze. Jimmy waved halfheartedly back at both of them, only for his mom to motion for him to come over.

_Well, here goes the rest of my long weekend,_ thought Jimmy to himself as he headed over to join the rest of his family.

"Don't mind Jimmy," Mrs. McGill told Chuck as Jimmy approached them. "He's in a funny mood lately."

"What? Am not," he retorted. "Uh, hi Chuck."

"Hi, Jimmy. How've you been?"

"Fine. You?"

"Also fine."

Jimmy found this last bit somewhat hard to believe. Up close, he could see how tired Chuck looked. More tired than usual, anyway, which was saying something; the last time he'd seen him was in the aftermath of their father's funeral, which wasn't  really a time to see anyone looking his best.

"Jimmy, you should offer to carry your brother's bags," chided their mother.

"Sure, if he's ok with that."

Chuck considered for a moment, before picking both his briefcase and his suitcase back up again.

"It's fine, mom, I can carry them."

"You sure? You look exhausted."

"It's been a long day. Let's just go home."

 

* * *

 

Jimmy trailed the two of them to the car; the conversation on the way there had followed in a similar manner ("are you _sure_ you don't want help carrying anything?") until the offending suitcase was finally placed in their car's trunk. Chuck got into the front passenger seat, briefcase on his lap, and shut his eyes and sank back against the headrest as soon as the door was closed behind him.

"You sure you're okay?" asked Jimmy as he climbed into the back seat immediately behind him. "Not to sound like mom or anything."

"Just peachy," Chuck replied. He hadn't bothered opening his eyes.

"You don't look okay."

"I'm just tired," he said, with audible exasperation. "Insomnia comes and goes. It's a bit rough to be going back into Central Time, but it's nothing, really. Don't act so concerned all of a sudden."

Mrs. McGill opened the door to get into the driver's seat, and the two brothers fell silent once again as she started the car and drove towards the exit of the parking lot. The silence remained unbroken until they reached the highway, and their mother tried to start up the conversation anew.

"It's really nice to have you home for Easter, Chuck. It's been lonely around the house these past few months with just the two of us. Isn't that right, Jimmy?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said noncommittally. He stared out the window of the car and watched the lights zipping past the car's windows in the dark.

"I told the choir director at church that you would be coming home for the weekend, and he told me to tell you that they might need help filling in some parts, if you would be up for it, at the Good Friday service or at the Easter Vigil."

"Hmm," Chuck said, mulling it over. "Depends on what they're singing or what the vocal range is. If it's still Mr. McKenna leading the choir, he has historically operated under the misapprehension that I am simultaneously a bass and a countertenor, when in reality I am neither."

"It's still Mr. McKenna," laughed Mrs. McGill. "I can give him a call tomorrow morning, if you want."

"Mm, you can do that, if you want, but wake me up beforehand if you do, so I can talk to him myself."

The ride continued in silence for another minute or so, until Mrs. McGill broke it once again.

"Jimmy's pretty close to graduating high school, you know."

"I am aware of that," replied Chuck.

"He got a letter in the mail from the University of Illinois," she continued.

_Oh God no, not here, not now_ , thought Jimmy.

"He did, did he?" said Chuck.

"I did," said Jimmy. "I--"

_It was now or never_.

"I was a little worried at first, but...I got accepted."

From the backseat of the car, he could see Chuck's face in the rearview mirror, and he saw his eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly.

"That's such great news, Jimmy," said his mother, admiringly. "I wanted to ask you yesterday, but didn't want to bring it up over dinner."

( _Why bring it up now, then_ , thought Jimmy, with the bitter regret of someone who now had to commit fully to a lie that was only half thought-out.)

"My two boys, both going to college. You're both so lucky, you know...your father and I could never have dreamed of anything like that for ourselves."

"It's just the University of Illinois," sniped Chuck. "It's not exactly known for its exacting admission standards."

"It's not the same as getting into an Ivy League school, no, but it's still important. It still means a lot to me. I'm sure it still means a lot to Jimmy too."

Jimmy opened his mouth as if to reply, but decided against it, and said nothing. The rest of the weekend lay ahead of them; whatever needed to be said could be said then. He shut his eyes and laid his head back against the seat as the car lapsed back into silence and continued speeding home through the night.


End file.
